


How'd You Learn to Paint Nails?

by Kawaiicoyote



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cute, Cute Derek, Derek Feels, Fluffy, Gen, Hale Family Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Sterek in the background, Sweet Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:23:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kawaiicoyote/pseuds/Kawaiicoyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek and Danika share a moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How'd You Learn to Paint Nails?

**Author's Note:**

> So this is just a little fic that can be a stand alone. It goes with a verse that's in my head where Stiles has a younger half sister Danika that ends up coming to live with him and the Sheriff. One day I will write out that verse completely. Today is not that day.
> 
> This is no beta'd and I'm sorry for that.

Silence in the Stilinski household is a rare thing. Rarer even with the bickering of the Stilinski siblings that hardly ever ceases until Sheriff Stilinski, bless him, has to step in and intervene.

So when Derek lets himself in through the front door instead of just heading to Stiles room by window he pauses when he shuts the door behind him. It’s eerily silent. Nothing aside from the usual noises that one expects from an occupied house. The hum of electricity, the faucet in the upstairs bathroom that drips no matter how many times it’s been “fixed”.

He stands just in the entry way and listens. His ears strain for a moment, and then the soft heartbeat reaches them. It’s Danika’s scent that he catches and follows deeper inside of the house.

She’s sitting at the head of the dining room table with her back to him, but with the slight tense of her shoulders he knows that she’s heard him.

“Hey squirt,” Derek says lightly, cautiously though.  Despite the hated nickname Danika hardly responds. Just a quiet sniffle from the girl which makes him start to worry even more. Silence from the eleven year old is rare but tears with her are nonexistent.

Derek edges his way around the table and take the seat to her right and sits at the empty table without invitation.

Her dark hair forms a partial curtain around her face but he can still see the majority of her blotchy nose and cheeks, can still smell the saline of her fresh tears. Not once does she acknowledge him completely, instead she stares off in front of him.

Derek’s eyes follow her gaze and finally land on the tiny bottle in front of them. It’s small and a bright neon shade of green. It floors him to no end as to why she would be crying over nail polish.

Until suddenly she raises her hands that rested in her lap and places them on the table top. The vivid green on her fingertips is smudged and messy. It’s obvious to him that she attempted to do them on her own and then wiped the mistakes off as best she could.

Derek sighs and rises from the table and takes off to the downstairs bathroom. Danika doesn’t question him. But when he returns to the table she startles a bit when he takes her hand in his.

One by one he takes a cotton swab and rubs off the work she’s done. The smell of the remover is too sharp for his senses. It burns his nose and sits heavy at the back of his throat but he ignores it, glad to see Danika’s eyes turn slowly from sad to curious as he work.

“Where did you get that?” Danika asks, voice quieter than usual but Derek ignores that for now. Instead he gives a grin and nods back to the hallway behind him.

“The girls coerced Stiles and your dad into letting them store their girl stuff in the downstairs bathroom for what they think of as emergencies.”

Without taking his eyes of her nails he can see her glace around him but they soon return, steadily becoming even more curious.

When he sets aside the cotton swabs and replaces them with the tiny green bottle of nail polish he can’t help but chuckle at her bug eyed disbelief.

The smell of the nail polish is almost as offending to his nose but it also brings back a pang of memories almost forgotten.

They’re both quiet when he picks up her hand and slowly starts to paint her nails. Derek’s hands aren’t as steady as they used to be and the paint job could be neater, but it’s still a far cry better than Danika’s attempt.

It’s when he’s moves onto her second hand that she speaks. A question that he’s been half expecting her to ask.

“How’d you learn to paint nails?”

Derek pauses mid-stroke but then continues, taking his time on answering, letting the onslaught of memories he has settle before he can open his mouth.

“I had sisters and cousins,” he answers hesitantly. “They would talk me into doing them for them. Every time they would ask and every time I would.” Derek closes his eyes for a moment and swears he can see Laura sitting across from him with their youngest cousin sitting in her lap, laughing cheekily at him, while he paints the little girls nails a bright sparkly pink.

“My mom used to do mine,” Danika’s voice is soft but it snaps Derek out of his memory. He finishes with her last nail and sets the bottle aside, leaving Danika to stare at her freshly painted nails. “She used to do them for me whenever she was off of work. And she would let me practice on hers, so I could get better.”

Derek nods and squirms a bit uncomfortably. He’s come a long way but he’s still not good with being able to comfort someone. The closest he usually got to that was offering the bite to soothe someone’s miserable life. But with Danika, all he can do is reach across the space between them and wrap his hand around hers, careful of the wet paint.

She looks up at him, big brown eyes that are exactly like her brothers, and he can feel all the hurt and sadness coming off of her in waves.

He wants to offer her something. To tell her the pain goes away, that it all gets better. But he knows that it would be a lie. The pain of losing a loved one _never_ goes away. It just gets tolerable, a thing you work your life around so it doesn’t crush and consume you.

So instead he sighs and does the only thing that he can think of, something he knows he’s bound to regret later.

“Would you like to practice on me? My nails are bigger and harder to mess up on. That way you can learn to get better and I know the girls would be happy to have another in the pack to do theirs with.”

Danika’s eyes light up excitedly, despite the wetness that clings to her lashes. “You mean it?”

Derek nods, trying not to look too grim about his suggestion. Which lasts all of two seconds before Danika’s mouth twists into a mischievous, albeit sinister looking, smile and she bolts up from the table and darts towards the stairs.

“I have the perfect color for you!” She yells over her shoulder and Derek groan aloud, wondering why he lets himself get into these situations.

Later on when Stiles makes an appearance, finally, and he finds Derek and Danika vegging out on the couch watching The Avengers, he can’t help but notice how Derek’s nails are a messy slathering of bright crimson red that he _almost_ mistakes as blood.

When asked, the only explanation Danika gives is that the Alpha should have alpha red nails. Derek nods and doesn’t explain and further, just makes room beside him for Stiles.

Stiles is curious but doesn’t push it when he catches the much neater polish on Danika’s nails. He just plops himself down on the cushion next to Derek and declares that if he has to sit through Marvel with them that they’re watching DC after.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I love kudos and your comments are amazing!  
> To anyone sticking around and waiting for my other works to update I promise I have not forgotten about you!


End file.
